Customer Reviews

Federal Aviation Regulations Explained: Parts 1, 61, 91, 141, and Ntsb 830

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The Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) can be somewhat overwhelming becuase they're not in layman terms. This book attempts to clear up ambiguity by analyzing the regulations in FAR parts 1 (definitions), 61 (airmen), 91 (conditions of flight) and NTSB 830 (reporting incidents and accidents).

It's a pity this book hasn't been updated in five years because it's a good reference. Each section of FAR parts is examined, usually with a plain-language explanation, references to Advisory Circulars or other regulations, National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) rulings and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief counsel opinions.

For example, many pilots get confused regarding 61.118, "private Pilot Privileges and Limitations: Pilot in Command." This is the section that attempts to spell out when a private (versus "commercial") pilot may be compensated for a flight. Subsection (b) specifies a pilot "may share the operating expenses of a flight with his passengers."

While this would seem pretty straightforward, people interpret this in ways that the FAA didn't intend. Consider three scenarios:

1. I am a software engineer and have a business trip to Portland. My salesman, who wants to sell more widgets, and I fly and I submit the actual rental and parking expenses for reimbursement from my company.

2. Friends of mine are parachute jumpers and pay me to carry them up so they can jump. I charge them $100 of the $150 it would cost me to go on the trip.

3. A friend wants me to fly her to Friday Harbor. I charge her for half of the gas, oil, parking, insurance, and maintenance.

As the "Federal Aviation Regulations Explained" might point out, #1 is legal because the flight is incidental to my job (programming).

#2 is not legal because I'm not really making the trip for my own purposes. In this case, FAR Explained points out the NTSB case "Administrator v. Reimer, 3 NTSB 2306 (1980), where the pilot was found in violation because there was no common purpose. The pilot's motive was to build hours partially paid for by others.

#3 is not legal, either, because the passenger would not be paying out of pocket expenses. Insurance and maintenance are usually factored over a period of time.

According to the FAA Counsel opinion, in #1, I would be able to expense it and build flight hours because the destination is where I have a paritcular business incidental to flying for a living.

The FARs can be painful to read, but this book helps clear some of the ambiguity and provide some background on NTSB and FAA interpretations such that a pilot won't be caught by surprise.

Over the past 30 years of flying I have brought perhaps 10 books on the FAR's including several updates of the full regs. This is better than the whole bunch combined.

Jackson combines the actual text of the regulation, letters from the FAA interpreting the regs , case law, plain English explanations of what they mean and comments.

This book provides everything you need to know about the regs to pass the exams but more importantly to fly safely and legally. It is indexed, cross referenced, written in the language of pilots and reflects Jeppsen's historic commitment to serving the needs of professional pilots.

Nice take on a dry subject. I enjoyed the case studies and FAA interpretations, it is a little expensive for the price but if you are just starting out learning about the FAR's I would recommend this as your first version of the FAR's. It isn't up to date however you can read the regulations online and very little has changed in the past 6 years.

I purchased "Federal Aviation Regulations Explained: parts 1, 61, 91, 141, and ntsb 830." I thought it would be similar to "Federal Aviation Regulations Explained Parts 1, 119, 135", which explains in plain language the federal regulations. What I got was a copy of the 1990 Federal Aviation Regulations. Not even the "explained" version, just 20 year old regulations.